Creating Cotehele's Christmas garland

Cotehele’s annual Christmas garland is celebrating its 65th anniversary this year in 2021 since the tradition to adorn the Great Hall began in 1956. It will be marking the occasion by recreating the design of early garlands which had a more traditional, greenery-inspired look. The team are turning back the clock to recreate a historic photograph of one of the earliest garlands that was taken in the 1980s. 

The garland hangs in the Great Hall from late November 2021 until the start of January 2022.

A unique display year-on-year

Each year the team at Cotehele spend 11 months planning and growing the garland. However, due to the impact of Covid 19 and subsequent Government guidelines and restrictions, plans had to be adjusted as there was a lot less time available for planting and growing the usual 30,000 flowers the team needed for the usual display. So this year hundreds of sprigs of pittisporum will be used and fewer dried flowers than previous years, creating an impressive natural look.

In early November the gardeners start with a 60ft-long (or even longer) piece of rope, which serves as the core and is designed to drape twice in the 44ft-long hall. They attach the small bunches of pittosporum to the rope with potato metal wire sack ties, incrementally covering the entire rope. This gives the framework to which they will add the dried flowers.

Putting the garland together

Creating the garland is a task which involves team work and Cotehele’s gardeners and volunteers use scaffolding to add flowers into the growing festive display.

Constructing the garland takes about 10 days including gathering and preparing the pittosporum (the foliage), but there are many more hours planning. The total number of hours spent preparing for and making the garland roughly equates to one full-time person every year.

Dave Bouch, Head Gardener at Cotehele said ‘A garland has always featured at Cotehele since the first was created in 1956. Since then, more and more flowers kept being added to the design each year. This year we’re taking this opportunity to step back and reflect on how this tradition started by recreating an early photograph of the garland. From a time when it was a more modest design and inspired by the decorative greenery and kissing boughs that the Tudors brough into their homes in winter.’